How do I edit a page?

To edit a page, simply click the edit tab at the top of the page. A form will appear, containing the existing markup. When you have finished making modifications, click the Save button to commit your changes.

How do I make a page private?

You don't. The UBC Wiki is an open, community wide platform. Anybody with a UBC CWL can edit it and anybody with an Internet connection can read it. If you have information that is confidential or private in nature, do not add it to the UBC Wiki. As an alternative, UBC Blogs supports granular levels of privacy.

How do I make a word bold or put a title in?

The formatting page lists the different ways to format text on the UBC Wiki.

How do I undo an edit I made?

All pages have a "page history," which consists of a record of the date and time of every edit, the username of the user who wrote it, and the summary of the changes. To access a page's history, clicking the "history" link in the View box (on the right). On the page that you would like to see the previous versions, click the "History" tab at the top of a page and you will see a list of all previous edits. You can then compare versions (click "Compare selected versions"), see previous versions (click "last" next to the version you would like to see), or reload a previous version (click "undo").

How do I add a picture to a page?

Before you embed or link to media content on a UBC Wiki page, it must first be uploaded to the wiki. To do this, go to the upload file page. Once the file is uploaded the code displaying an image is:

Organizing

I'm not sure what part of the wiki my page belong in? How do I decide if where to put it?

Unlike other wikis, the UBC Wiki uses collections of pages (called Namespaces) to help keep the wiki organized. This chart provides a good starting place for understanding what type of pages goes where. For example, course pages probably go into the course namespace and meeting notes might work best in the sandbox.

How do I add my page to the Course space?

To add a new page to the Course space (or to the Documentation space), prefix the page name you want to create with the space name and a colon (either "Course:" or "Documentation:"). For example, the page name ABCD123 would be added after the space name "Course:" to make Course:ABCD123. You can create the new page by searching for this full title or browsing to the extended url, for example: wiki.ubc.ca/course:ABCD123. To add an already existing page to the course space, use the move function and rename the page with the "Course:" prefix. For example, a page named ABCD123 would be renamed Course:ABCD123.

I'd like to change the title of my page. How do I rename it?

Renaming pages is done by moving the page using the "move tab" at the top of the edit screen. Clicking on the move tab will give you the option to move the current page to a new page with a new title. A redirect from the old title will automatically be created.

My page was moved or renamed. What gives?

As the UBC Wiki grows, keeping it organized is important. Good organization helps ensure that the information on the wiki is findable and accessible and that the UBC Wiki as a the whole is useful. As part of a organizational project, the Wiki Administrator will be moving and renaming pages to make sure that are in the right spaces and places on the wiki. See UBC_Wiki:Wiki Gardening for more information about this project.

Page Management

How do I restrict my course pages to students enrolled in the class?

The UBC Wiki is an open platform that runs on an installation of the MediaWiki software platform. It is not possible on this platform to restrict individual pages to a predefined course list. If you are looking for a tool that gives you the ability to restrict course pages to enrolled students, there are a number of other platforms that might work as well. For example, you can create private class wikis through the Vista learning management system. Likewise, you can also create private class blogs or groups at http://blogs.ubc.ca.

How do I sign my messages on discussion or talk pages?

The discussion pages automatically add your signature to a comment or reply. However, you can also manually add your signature by putting four tilde marks after your message: ~~~~. When the wiki software sees the marks, it automatically inserts your username and a time and date stamp. For example: WikiAdministrator 20:11, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

If a page on my watchlist is moved or renamed, will it still be on my watchlist?

Yes, it will be. When a page is renamed or moved, it does not cause a disruption for people watching that page. So for example, if a person puts the page Sandbox:Example Wiki on their watchlist and that page gets renamed to Course:Wiki Training, their watchlist will automatically be updated to include the new name.

Advanced Editing

How do I add a table of contents to my page

Table of Contents are automatically created when you have more than three headers/sections on your page. Information on how to create headers can be found on the Help:Formatting page. If you have three or less sections on your wiki page, you can force the software to generate a table of contents by typing __FORCETOC__ onto your wiki page (that's two underscores, FORCETOC in all caps, and then two more underscores).

How do I insert a linked footnote or citation into my text?

Footnotes are automatically organized and linked using the <ref>, </ref>, and <references/> tags. Please see Help:Footnotes and References for information on how to use these tags.

How do I add a video to my page; can I upload it?

Videos cannot be directly uploaded to the wiki; instead, the best way to add a video to your wiki page is to upload it to a video hosting service like YouTube, Kaltura, or Vimeo and then embed that video onto your webpage. See Help:Adding Media/Video for information on how to embed videos.

I'd like to copy and paste text from my website. Is there a way to do this without having to reformat all the content?

The easiest way to do this is to convert the HTML code of the webpage to the proper Wiki Syntax using an online converter. See Help:Converting HTML to Wiki Syntax for a list of recommended converters. Please be mindful of copyright.

I'd like to copy and paste text from a Word document into the UBC Wiki. Is there a way to do this without having to reformat all the text?

Is there was a way to add a collapsible section to a wiki page?

Some instructors post exercises to the UBC Wiki and find it beneficial to have the solution hidden at first so students can attempt to solve the problem on their own. The best way to create a collapsible section is to make a Collapsible table. To make a table collapsible, simply add the collapsible class to the table itself. The page at Help:Collapsible Tables gives more information about how to add the class as well as other collapsible parameters you can add to the tables.

How do I add a Google Map to my page?

Google maps are added using the <googlemap> and </googlemap> tags. You must also know the latitude and longitude for the center point of your map. The page at Help:Adding Media/Google Maps provides in-depth information for how to properly format the code for a google map.

How do I delete a page?

By default, MediaWiki (the software that the UBC Wiki runs on) does not allow individual users to delete pages. This is partially based on the theory that pages on the wiki are not "owned" by any one person but rather belong to the community. Users can request or nominate pages for deletion by typing {{delete}} at the top of their page.

How do I make external links open in a new window?

Unfortunately, MediaWiki (the software on which the wiki runs) does not have a way in which wiki markup code can be used to open individual links in new windows (in the way that HTML-based web pages can use the target="_blank" code). Generally speaking, this setting is probably due to the reasoning that opening links in new windows does not necessarily meet web accessibility guidelines or current usability practices. For more information, this write up explores the usability issues with opening links in new windows and the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) technique page talks briefly about the accessibility issues.

How do I embed my twitter stream into my wiki page

Twitter and other social media apps can be embedded in the UBC Wiki through the use of widgets. Please see the Help:Widgets page for more information.